Note: Joi Ito is a major Tokyo biz hotshot.

Foreigners and Japanese customs
April 03, 2004 / 15:29 JST --> Japanese Culture
A lot of people ask me about Japanese customs. They learn the formal way to hand business cards, they bow deeply when they meet Japanese and they call me "Ito-san." Stop that. It's silly. To some Japanese, the awkward foreigners trying to please their hosts by acting Japanese may look cute, but more likely than not, you'll get a A for effort but you'll be forever the silly foreigner in their minds. It's only the extremely intolerant xenophobe who would really want a foreigner to really act...more....

Joi really peeved me this his post. He is a bilingual, bi-cultural and can get away with many things that other mere mortals cannot. Sure this is his birth-right, but he should not assume that everybody has had the same experiences and advantages.

Having said that, I do like Joi and admire the way he has seized the opportunities that have come his way. He is quite famous for being, well famous. And has blogged and written about it for years for us all to share and learn from.

The simplest question to Joi would be to replace "Japanese" with "White American", "Japanese language" with "English language", and see how he thinks.

For example:

They learn the formal way to carry-on with customers at the local bar, they can even make good jokes about the latest celebrity mistakes, or repeat the raunchy jokes they heard that morning on Howard Stern.

Stop that. It's silly. To some Americans, the awkward Japanese trying to please their hosts by acting American may look cute, but more likely than not, you'll get a A for effort but you'll be forever the silly Japanese in their minds. It's only the extremely intolerant KKK member who would really want a Japanese to really act, well, American.

Somebody far wiser than ito-san (should I even bother saying that?) put it best:

Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more; si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi

Or, as we all know it:

When in Rome do as the Romans do

My motto is: When in Rome, do whatever the fuck you want.

i think that to a certain segment of the Japanese population, we are silly foreigners no matter what we do, so just go with what you think is right.

there is nothing wrong with using some of the simple customs of a country in which you are living and working.

Of course you aren't Japanese, and the more xenophobic types will be wary of you. But my experience is, most people find you just as exotic and interesting as you would find them were the situations reversed.